Nash-Vegas

I’m in Nashville at the Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center’s National Leadership Conference. It has been especially interesting since several college presidents supporting the drinking age to be lowered back to 18 came out this week. It amazes me that college presidents would sign a petition like this when their universities are the ones providing the research showing that alcohol consumption is especially damaging to people’s brains who are under the age of 22. These universities also provide much of the social research of the dangers of under-aged drinking….hmm

Yesterday I went to a session presented by a youth empowerment org. from NH called Youth 2 Youth. The presenters were 2 high schoolers and a young adult. I was impressed. The program model they use is simple, but effective. They give youth information on issues, then allow them to process, discuss and form their own opinion about the concern. They then give youth the skills to participate in addressing the issue. These skills include public speaking, writing press releases, lobbying, acting, media development, and creating campaigns. Lastly they give them opportunities to put their skills into action. They provide opportunities to present in classrooms and conferences, have them create psa for radio stations or the local tv stations, drive them to the court house and connect youth to local legislators to help them change laws. Y2Y does a great job empowering youth and recognizing that they are part of the solution not the problem.

Today a man named Leo McCarthy spoke at one of the group sessions. He started an organization called Mariah’s Challenge. He created it last year after his teenaged daughter died in a drunk driving accident. He told his story through tears. It was powerful..I cried. It is amazing how one tragedy can impact a community in such a powerful way. The people at this conference want to prevent stories like this from happening. I think his story touched us all.

I am thankful that I got to come to this conference. It has educated me a lot about what I’m going to be working with this year in my internship. It has gotten me more excited. One thing I might be working on is getting the faith community of Gwinnett more involved in drug and alcohol prevention. This should be a good year!